Bike Tour around Thonburi: This was the perfect activity to welcome us to Bangkok and Thailand after a month in India where any sort of biking activity in a major city would have been unthinkable. Our biking crew consisting of two other American travelers quickly set off in a line behind our guide, Prayuth, zig-zagging the narrow streets and canals past local homes, food vendors, and schools. It was a bit like a game of telephone where Prayuth would shout out points of interest and upcoming maneuvers (e.g. “that’s a Chinese mask shop!” or “sharp turn left!”), and the first in line behind Prayuth would pass along the message to the rest of the group sometimes getting lost in translation. Prayuth, a funny and friendly Thai man in his 20s, seemed to know everyone we passed in the neighborhood. We mainly rode through the less touristy Thonburi neighborhood, which was the capital of the kingdom in the 1700s before the first King Rama moved the capital across the river to the heart of modern Bangkok. Outside of watching everyday life unfold along the alleyways, the highlights included visiting various temples and the newly constructed giant golden Buddha outside Wat Paknam Bhasicharoen (Prayuth tells us its primary goal is to attract tourism to the less traveled but historic neighborhood). Luckily for us, this would not be our last biking activity in Thailand. 

Jay Fai: One of two Michelin star street food stalls in the world, Jay Fai is somewhat of a legend made even more famous by its feature in the Netflix series “Street Food Asia”. We include this in the “what we saw” section of our post, because this was more than just a meal at a restaurant, this was an experience. 73 year-old head chef and owner Supinya Junsuta stands over a wok hissing up charcoal fueled flames, dressed in her iconic protection goggles and camo t-shirt, for 12 hours a day touching every single dish served by the restaurant. We weren’t originally planning on eating here given what’s involved to get a table, but quickly realized it was a 5-minute walk down the street from our hotel so figured “why not?”. Jessie and Doug made their way over at 6:30am one morning to join the queue and (hopefully) secure an early table. Luckily, we were 7th and 8th in line which meant we not only secured plastic chairs for the 2-hour wait to put our names in but also ended up in the first round of seatings. Promptly at 8:15am, the seating list opened and the line moved through to put names in. By the end of the morning queue, the restaurant was completely booked up for the day. Aspiring patrons who showed up late and disappointed were at least rewarded with the consolation prize of watching Supinya in action on the street corner. We summoned Mimi for the 9:00am seating and were up front and center when our table was called. The three of us had a blast sitting in the unassuming Michelin star restaurant, sipping on fresh iced tea and orange juices and watching Supinya work on the first round of orders. The food did in fact live up to the hype and wait, and was spectacular – we all split the famous crab meat omelette (filled with a portion of fresh lump crab meat unfathomable to US proprietors), sour spicy dry tom yum noodles, and drunken noodles. A highlight of our time in Thailand if you were to ask any of us 🙂 

House of Taste Cooking Class: The three of us have always enjoyed carrying out from our favorite Thai restaurant in Colorado (shout out, Phat Thai) and cooking together, so it was only appropriate that we take a cooking class in Bangkok. House of Taste did not disappoint – our voracious chef de cuisine, Pim, taught us all about the key ingredients in Thai cooking (lemongrass, galangal, Thai garlic, and birds eye chilis) and had us in laughing fits throughout the experience. We made our way seamlessly through a menu of staple dishes like tom yung ga (spicy coconut and lemongrass soup with shrimp), pad Thai, and massaman curry with chicken – all some of the best we had in Thailand! Needless to stay we were totally stuffed after a morning feast at Jay Fai and afternoon multi-course meal at House of Taste. Our ambitious plan to walk back to the hotel only lasted to the end of the alley when we decided to hop in a cab. 

Tuk Tuk Street Food Tour with Ai: Bangkok is a street food city, so we were excited to continue our eating adventures with a street food tour by Tuk Tuk (because, why not?). We met our guide, Ai, along with a family from Singapore that would round out our group for the day. Ai was one of the most friendly, positive, and energetic tour guides we’ve had on our travels, and we felt at ease navigating the busy market and chinatown streets with her as our leader. Ai had arranged a personal Tuk Tuk for the day for the three of us, driven by a woman named Sa whose mother was in charge of the three Tuk Tuks on our tour (a real Tuk Tuk mafia). We loved eating and riding our way around the city – the highlights included:

• Trok Mor Morning Market: Our first food-oriented stop was a morning market typically frequented by the government employees that worked nearby. One of our favorite stops on the tour, we spent our time here sampling delicious local street foods and walking up the main pedestrian street stopping at each stall to learn about different produce and dishes from Ai. Some of our favorites included spicy fried fish on a stick with pickled cucumber, a pancake made of fried prawns with hot honey, khanom khrok (coconut-rice pancakes topped with various fixings like young coconut and scallion), kanom jeen nam ya (a special red curry soup with chicken and fish balls only served on Saturdays and Sundays until its gone), and fresh jackfruit

• Pad Thai Fai Ta Lu: This stop included dinner and a show – before indulging in the namesake dish we got to watch the chef in action from the window preparing it fresh. It was fun to see each element of the dish added to the wok before the chef ignited the wok with a great ball of fire. The pad thai tasted delicious when we finally got to enjoy the fruits of his labor

• Wat Bowon Niwet Ratchaworawihan: We needed to give our stomachs a half-time break, so we rode over to one of the more beautiful temples in Bangkok. With the help of Ai, we participated in the typical Thai Buddhist religious customs which included a lotus flower, incense (which left a burn mark on both Jessie and Mimi), and candle offering before entering the temple and admiring the magnificent golden Buddha inside

• Chinatown: Our eating adventures ended in the bustling Bangkok Chinatown area, which is one of the most vibrant in the world. The streets here are lined with markets, street food vendors, and gold shops. Ai explained that many Thai people put their savings into gold jewelry instead of a bank or investment account – the queues at these shops were down the street when we walked by. We came here for the street food though, which is some of the best in Bangkok. The highlights included a delicious (and supposedly famous) bowl of Chinese pepper pork belly soup (Doug liked this better than Mimi) and the best mango sticky rice we had while in Thailand (which is a serious accolade here)